


In the hands of the enemy

by FuryBeam136



Series: Whumptober 2020 but bad [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Whumptober 2020, also i accidentally made this gwelum woops, i only put this in the tellius tag because melum is a laguz, its mainly original, woops im so behind right now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26836927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuryBeam136/pseuds/FuryBeam136
Summary: Day 2 of Whumptober 2020 (yes I'm behind)Prompt: "Pick who dies" |collars| kidnapped
Series: Whumptober 2020 but bad [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951480
Kudos: 4





	In the hands of the enemy

She holds her head high and she smiles even as the weight of her capture tries to drag her down. Her fingers fly to her throat as they have so many times over the past years, but instead of bare skin they are met with the collar clasped around her neck. She is returned to the status she supposedly ought to hold. She is powerless and she is weak.

No one will come for her. This is where she belongs, a songbird in a gilded cage. She does not need freedom, does not deserve it. They will all see that, eventually. They will leave her here and they will speak of her as a ghost of times long passed and then they will be gone, just ash and dust on the wind, and she will be the only one to remember them. And no one will remember her.

Who would bother to remember her? She is a trophy, a token, nothing more. A token of wealth to be passed around and shared as her superiors see fit. She aches to be more, but that is her role. People will take their fill from her and pass her on to the next. She will be forgotten, left out of history, unless perhaps she makes it in as a footnote. It hurts to know no one will ever look back and think on her. They will look back on her people and they will call it a tragedy, but their eyes will never turn to her. Their lips will never shape her name. Not her real name, anyway. She has had a thousand names over her life. She lets her fingers trace the leather disc hanging from the collar at her throat, traced with letters she recognizes but cannot read.

Her throat aches where the collar sits, and she thinks to ask for a cream of some kind before remembering her requests will go unanswered here. She has grown soft, being treated as an equal by those outside these walls. She has learned to expect things she never should have expected. Kindness is at the top of that list. She closes her eyes to block the tears within from escaping, and gentle hands and warm, soft eyes flash behind her eyelids.

She almost expects to see him when she opens her eyes again. To feel his breath stir strands of her hair, to feel his hands around her shoulders. To hear him whisper in that gentle, comforting voice of his, “It was just a dream. Go back to sleep, Mel.” She wishes it was a dream. She wishes she was lying in a cot with him, wrapped in blankets she insisted were far too nice to take on a journey of this kind and folded to put back in the cupboards only to find he’d snuck them into their bags in place of the old, ratty things she’d packed. Soft and warm, like his hands, his eyes, his hair.

She may never see him again. That thought hurts more than the rubbing of the collar against her neck. He might be dead and gone by the time she is able to leave this place.

Her eyes water, and this time she does not stop the tears from falling.


End file.
